


A Wrinkle in Puffballs

by nepetrel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Time Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 23:31:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13669581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nepetrel/pseuds/nepetrel
Summary: Neville got halfway through breakfast before realizing something was off.





	A Wrinkle in Puffballs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



Neville got halfway through breakfast before realizing something was off. 

He'd sat between Septima and Silvana as he usually did, nodding to both of them in turn. Septima was engrossed in the morning paper, as was her habit, and Silvana wasn't given to speaking much before her morning cuppa. The House tables were a little emptier than was typical on a Monday morning, but Neville only noted that absently before digging into his own breakfast. 

No, he didn't realize anything was wrong until he casually asked Septima, “still working on yesterday's paper?”

Septima looked up. “What? No, this is this morning's.”

“But the headline – ” Neville broke off, confused. He knew he'd seen the headline about that poltergeist band yesterday. He and Septima had discussed it, actually, when Septima had said, 

“I'll never understand modern music. Give me a Celestina Warbeck classic any day.” 

But no – Septima had just said that now, smiling, though that smile faltered when Neville didn't respond. Hastily he answered, “can't be worse than all of these historical rock bands popping up,” and Septima laughed and went back to her paper.

Neville wasn't laughing. He knew he'd said that yesterday. Instead he turned to Silvana and asked, “sorry, do you know what day it is today?”

Silvana didn't even look up. “It's Sunday, the thirteenth.” 

“Thanks,” Neville said, and excused himself to go decide if he was losing his mind. 

His office looked the same as it had the day before yesterday, but not as he'd last seen it. There was grading open on his desk that he'd finished last night after coming back from meeting Draco; now it was all undone. Neville picked up an assignment randomly from the middle of the stack, and within three sentences knew exactly what he'd circled and commented on last night before reaching it. 

Not losing his mind, then. He didn't have the imagination to come up with the sorts of things Miss Brocklehurst put in her essays. And even if his subconscious had managed to forget where the apostrophe went in 'pig's ear fungus,' it wouldn't have put it in three different places in the same sentence.

Well, then. Neville sat back in his chair and started dashing off a few quick letters. 

This was probably Septima's area; time magic almost always required a strong knowledge of arithmancy. But that meant convincing her that time was looping, and that would be hard to do, given that her instinctive response after years of teaching was to assume a prank was afoot, and since he had hardly been at Hogwarts at all yesterday. (Last today. Whichever.) It would be easier to convince someone from the outside to come in and confirm that time was running strangely on the grounds. 

The owl he'd sent to the ministry came back with a form response, which was bloody typical. Hannah had sent back a confused response that had managed to ask with some delicacy if he'd recently inhaled potion fumes, which Neville thought was unfair; he'd taken great pains to stay away from any and all brewing potions for years now. Harry didn't respond at all – he probably wouldn't notice he had mail waiting for hours, possibly longer. 

Strangest of all was that a message came back immediately from Draco, when all Neville had done was hurriedly send off a note by Floo telling him he needed to reschedule. Neville unfolded it quickly, but all it said was “MEET ME AT THE HOG'S HEAD. NOW.” 

He hadn't bothered addressing Neville at all, but it still had Draco's swooping signature underneath. Neville rolled his eyes. That was typical. He winced a little at the thought of seeing Draco again, given how awkwardly their last encounter had ended. But it was curious enough – and the other responses were worrisome enough – that Neville stood up regardless. Maybe a walk would do him good. At the very least he might be able to see how far the spell, or whatever it was, spread.

The walk didn't do him much good. He couldn't tell where the spell ended; shops in Hogsmeade were still selling Sunday's paper. Between that and Hannah's response, Neville was starting to worry. At least the Hog's Head was mostly empty. The pub had been thoroughly reconstructed following Aberforth's retirement, turning the cramped space into something that could almost be called cozy instead of disgusting, and these days one could even expect their drink to come in a clean glass. But its food was still shit, and it was still something of an evening establishment, and even with the wait for owls to come back it was hardly midday; the only people inside when he entered were the bartender, a shapeless lump in the far corner who could belong to any number of species, and Draco himself.

“Finally,” Draco said. “What day do you think it is?”

“Hello, Draco,” Neville said, mostly to annoy him. “For some reason it seems to be Sunday, even though it was Sunday yesterday.”

To Neville's astonishment, Draco sagged in relief. “You're the first person I've seen today who knows that,” he said. “No one in Wiltshire has noticed anything's gone wrong.”

“Wiltshire!” Neville repeated, astonished. “But that's – ” 

“I know,” Draco said. He didn't seem astonished at all, but instead was looking at Neville with an intensity he wasn't used to. “It's too far. No spell this strong should be able to cover that kind of distance. I thought it would be broken here, but the bartender tried to sell me their Sunday special.” He grimaced. “Probably all of Britain's under it. Maybe more.”

“We better hope not,” Neville said grimly. “Do you know anyone abroad you can ask?”

“I sent Daphne Greengrass a note, but she doesn't have an international Floo address I could send a letter through, and the problem with owling abroad is that it takes time for people to get back to you.”

“And if the owl hits the spell line, it might get confused and turn around anyway.” Neville sighed. “I suppose it's up to you and me to convince people, then.”

“So it seems,” Draco said, his mouth doing something complicated. Neville thought he might be suppressing a sneer. One of these days Neville was going to tell him that made him look like a rodent, just to see the indignant expression he'd make next. 

The reasonable place to start was with Septima, who raised an eyebrow when Draco trooped into her office behind Neville but said nothing about his presence. She raised the other when they started explaining.

“Neville, I'd love to believe you because that would be fascinating to study, but that's impossible,” Septima said. “It's not just a matter of raw magical power. To fold time like that, there would be an excess of heat that would need to get shunted somewhere, issues with bounceback time, interpockets, all the usual things involved in time magic.” 

Neville had no idea what most of those things were, but he nodded anyway. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Draco shaking his. “But it's clearly happening,” Draco argued, “so there has to be _something_ – ”

“Mr. Malfoy,” Septima said, and Draco shut up. Neville wondered if Septima had ever had him in one of her classes. “You've said other people from across Britain have confirmed it's Sunday. In fact, everyone you've asked has said as much. Have you considered that maybe we're not looping, but you are?”

They took a moment to digest that. Then Draco said, “it was the bloody rooting puffballs!” 

“What,” Neville said, and then, catching on, “they're puffballs, Draco, they can't make people travel through time!”

“The only time we were alone together was when you came over to – ” Draco's eyes skittered to Septima “ – harvest the puffballs,” he finished. “You said it was strange that they were growing on the manor grounds when no one had seen puffball fungus in Britain in over thirty years. You said it might be a sign that they had unknown magical properties.” 

“I...did say that, yes,” Neville agreed reluctantly. He didn't mention that he'd meant something more like invisibility or special hardiness; he'd learned a thing or two about talking to Draco and that was a pointless argument to have in Septima's office. “So I suppose that means we should go get samples.” 

“Glad that's settled,” Septima said briskly. “Now get out.”

They stuck around anyway long enough to Floo to Malfoy Manor from her office. Draco's mother was out, like she'd been last time, which was a shame; she had taken up horticulture in recent years and it had made for easy conversation the very few times Neville happened to see her out and about. Instead he and Draco trooped out to the grounds in near silence, crossing lush grass and Mrs. Malfoy's experimental desert section before coming to the little grove where the rooting puffballs grew. 

Standing here in the light, Neville was starting to believe that maybe the puffballs did have some kind of effect on time. He was getting deja vu, looking at Draco standing uncomfortably by the willow tree, right where he'd been standing yesterday when Neville had made the apparently disastrous decision to kiss him. Neville coughed and pulled out his tool bag, unshrinking it long enough to retrieve a small set of shears and some sample bags. He snipped off two large bulbs and put them in sample bags without touching them, then put both back into his tool bag. “Well, that was a bit anticlimactic,” Neville said, starting to rise. “I'll test one myself and send the other off to the Department – ”

“Neville,” Draco said. 

“Hm?”

And then Draco kissed him.

He'd caught Neville halfway out of his crouch; Neville flailed out a hand and shoved it on the ground to keep from overbalancing, hoping he wasn't disturbing some other potentially-magical flora as he did so. Draco didn't seem to mind, bringing his own hand around to cup the back of Neville's head and tip it up to meet him better, and well, Neville could hardly complain. He got his feet under him and rose up, kissing Draco the whole time, until they finally broke apart and stared at each other.

“About yesterday,” Draco said. “I'm not very good with surprises.” 

He also wasn't very good with apologies, but Neville was suddenly feeling too giddy to care. “Well, it seems to me you got a do-over,” he said instead. “And next time we can go out somewhere nicer than the Hog's Head.”

Draco laughed, and it was such a nice look on him that Neville leaned in to kiss him again. Then, struck by a horrible thought, he leaned back again. “I hope kissing isn't what triggers the time effect,” Neville said. Draco groaned.

“Don't even joke about that!”


End file.
